


Homecoming

by Plodder



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Obi-Wan has to move on, Starting Over, mind the major character death warning, post-RotS AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 01:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15038033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plodder/pseuds/Plodder
Summary: The war is over.  The Chancellor is dead, but so is his Padawan.  Now, Obi-Wan has to pick up the pieces of his old life and move on.  Along the way, he gets some help from an old friend.





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sad, self-indulgent thing that came to me while I was running today. I hope you enjoy it!

Padme insisted that the funeral be held on Naboo. A hero’s death and final journey, laid out pure as snow on a petal covered bier to float the canals of Theed accompanied by a solemn chorus of bell-like voices, haunting in grief. He had no mind to argue with her.

He’d watched Anakin die, from the other side of the room, quiet as snowfall. It had happened so fast and he was so slow, his own limbs weighed down like he was swimming through mire. By the time he’d reached Anakin’s side, he was gone, passed into the Force gently, the antithesis to his life.

Dead too was the Chancellor, but Obi-Wan paid him no mind. He’d only eyes for his beloved Padawan. He’d seen enough death to know that it wasn’t often peaceful, but Anakin’s was, eyes closed, lips in a tiny smile. Obi-Wan would never see the sky blue of his eyes again. Now he was a white, bloodless thing, lovely and distant as the ancient statues in the royal gardens on Alderaan.

Obi-Wan had held his cooling body until Mace and Kit had pried it out of his arms. It was impossible to know how much time had passed, seconds, minutes, hours, days; it was all the same.

Someone had led him, hollowed eyed and empty, back to the Temple, where he’d sat on the floor in his rooms, consumed by grief. _I loved him, I loved him_ , was his endless litany. _I can’t let go_.

Time passed, as it does, a day or two. He’d stumbled in to the Council Chambers like a drunk and folded into his familiar seat. They knew. Everything. About the marriage, about the pregnancy. After two minutes of listening to them bicker and snivel about whether Anakin would be treated as a Jedi in death, he stood up calmly and left the Order.

He walked over to Mace and handed him his ‘saber and went back to his rooms to collect what little belongings he had. This had been the only life he knew, but it was over. He was done. Mace had followed him out onto the steps, down into the crowd, asking him to think it over, to give it time. If Anakin couldn’t be considered a Jedi any longer, neither could he. His sins had overwhelmed him.

He bought a ticket for the cheapest transport to Naboo and sat, crowded with the throngs of downtrodden travelers, a forgotten human in spacer’s clothes, some of the few civilian things he owned. He’d cut off his hair and shaved his beard and so was unrecognizable, ageless, faceless, one of the masses.

His grief was like an ocean, rocking and rolling through him in waves, slowly drowning him.

Eventually he’d made it to Padme’s family’s villa the day before the funeral. He could feel her anger, feel that she almost couldn’t stand to look at him, a reminder of what once was. Yet, she was still gracious, still kind, even when she was round as a moon. He left the day after, taking his pathetic things. He couldn’t bear to see the children. Maybe someday he would, when he wasn’t washed empty by grief.

Where to go? Now it was only a matter of picking a world. He looked up at the list of transports leaving in the next hour. Corellia. That’s where he would go. There were oceans there.

 _I would like to see the ocean_ , he thought, and that was enough to keep going for now, to be purified by water. Live to see the ocean and figure out what to live for next. That was what he would do. He had enough credits to cover a few month’s rent in a tiny one room apartment in a tall, sterile building. If he took the lift to the top, he could see the ocean.

What does a retired Jedi General do? If he wanted to live, he needed credits. That was the way of things. He wasn’t sure what he wanted. Couldn’t feel. All was gone. There was nothing but the waves crashing against him.

In the end, he ended up finding work, a distraction, something to occupy his time until he could figure out what to do. He had no way of communication, no way of knowing if anyone was looking for him, but why would they? A tiny part of him knew that there was one he could contact, one that he loved once, but he was afraid that he couldn’t love anymore, that that part of him was gone.

He took the name of Ben Jinn. It was all he knew.

Anakin would laugh, snicker, roll around on the floor if he found out his old Master was a ship’s mechanic, but that’s all he was qualified for in the world outside the Temple. At the least, it occupied his days and mind. Nights were spent alone, endlessly walking to the ocean, not hungry as he was filled with grief and longing for something he couldn’t quite say.

Time passed and he found Anakin was always with him, joking with him, beside him on his nightly journeys. He talked to Anakin when he was alone in his apartment, when the walls felt like they would fall on him and let the water in. He sometimes caught glimpses of him out of the corner of his eye, a glint of light on golden brown hair.

He worked and the days passed. One day, he was working under an engine, when it fell. He made no move to catch it, though he could, with the help of the Force. The Force failed him. He had no love for it now. It took the one he loved as a brother for the sake of a prophecy and for balance. All it did was take, just like the sea.

Darkness took him, like sinking under the still surface of unfathomable depths. It was calm and quiet. Before things went black, he heard a soft voice calling his name.

* * *

Mace Windu shuffled through never ending data pads, rubbing at his head in frustration. He heard the communicator at his desk chime and he answered it. The hologram of a human medic appeared, looking nervous.

“Uh, Sir, I think we may have one of yours here.”

He was not in the mood for this. “Where is here?”

“Med Center in Coronet City. We didn’t really know who he was, so we ran his blood and found a match with one Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Mace set down the datapad he’d been holding. They’d been looking for him for a year after he’d left abruptly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Head injury, some internal injuries, crushed leg. The rest will heal, the leg will need some surgeries to fix.”

“Don’t do anything yet. I’ll send someone for him.” Kriff it. They had no idea how to treat a Jedi.

Mace had one man looking for him, and that was the man he’d send. After he ended that call, he commed his contact. “Vos, come to my office.”

A few minutes later, he came sauntering in, braids swinging. Despite his jaunty manner, he seemed somewhat subdued. “What is it, boss?”

“I found your friend.”

Vos’s face expression briefly turned serious, followed by joyful. “Obi-Wan? Where is he?”

“Med Center on Coronet City. I don’t care what he says. Bring him home.”

“Yes sir,” Vos said, with a little salute.

* * *

Vos found him where he was supposed to be for once. He looked small and alone, in a tiny sanitized room, his leg in some odd contraption. His hair was cut short like the atrocity of his Padawan days at least without the hideous tail, and he was stubbled, but his eyes were still the muted grey greens of Corellia’s oceans. To Quinlan, he was still the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.

“Thought you could just leave, huh? That no one would miss you?” Quinlan asks, sitting in the chair beside his bed.

Obi-Wan turned his head towards him, eyes a little glassy and rimmed with fine lines Quinlan doesn’t remember being there before. “I didn’t know what to do. He was gone, Quin. I didn’t know.”

Quinlan tried so hard not to be angry, not let it shake through him like a passing hurricane. “I could have helped you. I could have. Why didn’t you come to me? Fuck, I would have left the Order with you.” He rubbed at his forehead in frustration.

Obi-Wan took his hand, and Quinlan’s heart melted, just a little. “I didn’t know where you were and I… I couldn’t think.” He rubbed gently at the space between his thumb and finger, soft and tender. “Quin, I was lost. I’ve been lost… I am lost.”

Quinlan studied the violet stains under his eyes, their distant expression. “I can see that.” He leaned down and kissed his cheek. When he didn’t back away, he kissed him on the mouth, soft and transitory, familiar yet not.

“Mace wants me to bring you back to the Temple for healing.”

Obi-Wan looked oddly terrified, the corners of his mouth were drawn down in horror. “Quin, I can’t go back there. I can’t.”

“I knew you’d say that, so I prepared. How about Naboo? They have excellent medical care and I can make sure they don’t kriff anything up too badly.”

Obi-Wan drew his brows together, lost in thought. “Quin, I don’t know…”

“I’ve talked to Senator Amidala. She misses you too, you know. She and Organa have been looking for you, just like I have.”

“You’ve been looking for me?” His eyes brightened for just a moment.

Quinlan can’t possibly be mad at him, not anymore. “Of course, you idiot. Anyway, you can stay with her while you heal.”

Obi-Wan shifted in the bed, face lined with pain. “What about you?”

Quinlan tried not to hope. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Where will you go? I hope it’s to Naboo,” Obi-Wan said, a hint of fondness in his gaze.

“Of course I’m coming with, my darling fool. I’d lost you. I thought I’d lost you forever. Did you think that now that I’ve found you I’d just let you go?”

Obi-Wan rubbed at his chin, clearly missing his beard. “Blast, Quin, it’s my fault, but I’ve been so alone. I don’t think I could have gone on anymore.”

Quinlan felt like his heart would burst. He wanted to squeeze Obi-Wan so hard, hold him so he could no longer escape. “I know. And I’ll be with you.”

“What about the Order?” Only Obi-Wan would still be thinking of duty.

“Kriff them. I’ll go where you go, at least until you get sick of me.”

Obi-Wan smiled, the first one he’d seen. “All right. If you promise… But I’m haunted by his death. He, he’s always there.”

Quinlan ran his hand across Obi-Wan’s cheek, the skin soft and worn. “And he probably always will be. That’s ok. That’s grief for you. You can tell me about him.”

“Quin, you hated him.”

Quinlan laughed, hate was too strong a word. “Hate, no. Honestly I was probably jealous of him more than anything.”

This got him another tiny smile. “He was good, Quin. He did so well in the end. I am so proud.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes looked wet, heavy with incipient tears. Quinlan had only ever seen him cry once, after the first time on Naboo. It was probably good for him. “And you should be. You can tell me everything when you’re ready.”

Obi-Wan wiped his eyes and reached out towards him, pulling him into an awkward hug, which Quinlan returned gently, trying not to hurt him, not jostle any of those fragile bones.

Obi-Wan looked up, eyes red-rimmed and yearning. “Of course I’ll come with you, Quin, my dear one. There’s nothing here.”

* * *

Obi-Wan went with Quinlan to Naboo, and slowly, tentatively, he began to live again. And no, Quin didn’t leave him. The twins were there, excitable, and active and ready to learn from their uncles. Obi-Wan found that there were oceans on Naboo as well, but they were so much brighter and full of life, blue as the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> Thanks as ever to my friend picavenger14 for reading this over!! And at short notice!!!
> 
> If you'd like, let me know what you think!


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